


Because Death Would Not Stop For Me

by VladimirHarkonnen (TheLightdancer)



Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel 616, The Sandman (Comics), The Venture Bros
Genre: Cameos, Corruption, F/F, F/M, Grimdark, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Rape, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Violence, Other, Psychological Horror, Reality Bending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:19:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLightdancer/pseuds/VladimirHarkonnen
Summary: Angered at Death flouting him and ultimately choosing Wade Wilson over him, Thanos proceeds to go to the DC Multiverse in a gigantic exercise in rage-quitting. There, he's given a True Name of a specific individual by another specific individual, and decides to begin his usual shtick in the DC Universe instead of the Marvel version. With Thanos binding and controlling the very essence of the concepts of Life and Death, the DCU finds itself facing a wholly new style of enemy, while Death in the Marvel Universe ultimately faces a choice of her own. As for Deadpool, there's a very familiar and very handsome one-eyed man he's just dying to entertain himself with.





	1. Skulls for the Skull Throne

A dimensional rift opened one unhallowed day. It was an ordinary day, no great mystical or otherwise significance around it, bar that a being from one multiverse had engaged for too long in a futile pursuit with too little reward. Thanos of Titan emerged from the portal, created by the wielding of the Space Stone. He remembered that the Stone could take him here but when he arrived it would not be able to bring him back. Not that he really cared. Countless sacrifices, from being God and able to outmatch all that was, even Eternity, unfathomable and remote as he is, himself, to humbling himself and accepting entry and the seeming of her love only to be thrown back. Thrown back, at that, for a lunatic in a red costume who seemed under the impression they were all characters in a comic book. That Thanos refused to accept, as otherwise it would mean some strange writer decided to make a deformed demigod and give him love for Death to sell glorified picture books and he was more than that, by all that was or would be. 

The Mad Titan arrived on a world that was inhabitable but barely present. A wind was blowing, a strong one, at that. Dust was in the air, and he raised one of his massive hands to shield his face, then his eyes narrowed. 

One being stood before him, androgynous in perfection, neither male nor female fully, the embodiment of a thousandfold set of emotions and feelings made manifest.

Golden eyes gazed into his pure black ones, and Thanos snarled:

**_I am Thanos of Titan, servant of she who is everlasting. Or at l_ east _I was. I am not amused at some cheap parlor trick wizard trying to greet me he_ re. _Let me guess: casting me through a portal for a half hour that seems infinite?_**

A silky laugh followed, a cat's purring element that was dissonant and unnatural to the Titan.

**No, Thanos. I am not that type. I am one of Seven, and I know I believe what the one you defied was and here our interests are the same.**

For the first time Thanos noticed two shadows, and stood more straightly, eyes narrowing beneath his brow ridge. What manner of demon was this that sought to dissuade hi-

**No demon, Titan. I am a being of Endless dimensions and power. And my foe in this case is an arrogant sibling who blames me for an action my brother freely took of his own will, and that all spiraled from something that one agreed.**

The entity smiled.

**Here. A word that will give you all you could wish. But beware, attaining desire is different from pursuit.**

Thanos's eyes furrowed further and then widened.

He smiled, the craggy furrows of his violet chin becoming deeper and his eyes sparkling with a dread power. Desire faded slightly hoping that the actions would humble their arrogant sister, who dared to state that anyone but Dream was the author of Dream's death, and who blamed Desire for what she would have to do in the future at any event. For a moment Destiny flickered into existence with his book, and spoke to his brother-sister:

_Fool. You have endangered life in all its varieties for pettiness. Yet such is it in the Book of Destiny that as Dream changed from his own errors, so then shall you. Now look upon and behold what you have wrought._

Thanos spoke a word of dreadful significance, the True Name of their sibling. Desire started. They'd been told it was a word of summoning by the smug blind wizard who'd handed it to them reminding them that even the Endless could be harmed if family blood was shed due to their actions.

Death appeared, wearing again a type of clothing that made Desire stop. A wedding dress with a veil, and a sense of genuine unease.

Thanos smiled far more cruelly.

_**By the power of your name I do command you to love, honor, and obey me. To be my endless love, who will forever give me all that I have ever sought. You are my bride by the power of your name, the name**_ -and he spoke a terrible word and then Death screamed in pain, a sound that horrified Desire for a moment as she didn't realize that any but Delirium was capable of such a scream and only Desire had heard it, or so they knew (Destruction too had heard it and it had started his path of leaving). The scream was a fundamental one, the reflection of a change in Life as well as Death, for the fundamental parameters binding and holding all existence in an entire swathe of the multiverse were forever altered.

The Mad Titan laughed with a terrible booming sound and too late did Desire realize their folly, for Death had become the Bride of Thanos and looked at him at one level with a rapt adoration, falling to her knees before him and kissing the knuckles of the laughing monster's right hand. The wedding dress had changed to a choker adorned with spikes and a leash, and nothing else. But within that gaze for a moment Death looked at Desire, and for the first time in a very long time, since Del had threatened to leave their family Desire felt a great swell of an emotion that among all the countless ones animating them was not a usual one.

Shame. Guilt. Fear. Death resumed the kisses and then Thanos smiled and said:

_**Now to test how adoring you really are, fickle one.** _

He raised a fist and then slammed it into her face, knocking Death on her back as she clutched a cheek that was momentarily bruised and with a bone protruding from it. The bones of the Endless, unlike those of other lifeforms. Iridescent and so was her blood.

Thanos waited.

"Thank you, my love. If it makes you happy, all that is of mine is yours. My body is yours to punch and harm at will."

The monster laughed again with that terrifying sound, his eyes roving over Death's exposed bare frame, lips parting in a terrible grin.

He then picked Death up and ordered her:

_**To your home, and to your bed. It is time that we began.** _

With a smile from her healing face, the blood run down past her breasts and coating much of her face with a terrible Rorschach pattern, Death complied as she and Thanos vanished. Desire stood for a long time in the ashes of their success, wondering just what manner of monstrosity they had unleashed and called good.


	2. Lord of All That Is

**_Death's Apartment, her bed:_ **

Thanos towered over the ancient being frozen forever at the image of a teenager, or so it seemed.

_**You are too young for me, girl. Change. Become a woman. I will not take a child.** _

Death smiled and said: "Of course, my love."

From the seeming of eternal adolescence she became an eternal young adult and all was rewritten so that she gained seven years in age and had always seemed such.

Thanos had bound her arms to her bed, and ordered her to display her wings, which he smiled at and then squeezed hard enough to hear her scream and writhe in pain, pain she looked at him adoringly thereby. She was.......some part of her, the part of her that was the inviolable core of the entity Death knew this was wrong, that she was undergoing a kind of torment none of the Endless had since the death of the first Despair, the first time she'd taken one of her siblings.

Some had speculated this was how Delight became Delirium but Death knew, Death knew the truth. That hadn't been why. She'd lost her guard, her control on her memories of all the countless universes she'd seen and seen Delight as the very first of all her siblings across the countless endless cycles she'd undergone and had to pretend. Delight had cracked. She'd been the cause of her death, then, and fittingly so. Destiny knew, in truth, exactly what had caused this.

Now she was smiling at a monstrous violet beast that towered over her, and entered her with a brutal sensation that to her virgin body, and in truth even to an experienced one would have been excruciating pain. Her pelvis shattered from the weight but her damnable healing restored it and toughened it to adapt within seconds. She was required to wrap her legs around him, to let his bestial maw take her own, to kiss her. To enjoy the crudity and violence directed at her, bones broken, blood spilled, marring her sheets she didn't restore because it wasn't her master's will.

Thanos of Titan, she knew was his name. The Mad Titan, a name he lived up to. For all of this lifetime Death's body had been virginal though this hadn't always been true in other universes. The loss of it, the loss of it this way, and the horrific feeling of Thanos's colossal form shooting what felt like a virulent stream of volcanic toxins.....there, inside of her frame, with her heaving and gasping and tears falling even then was what it was.

Then he slid out of her, went off to clean himself, and left her to stare at her teddy, Cavendish, which she did in a broken emotional void that was in none of her siblings' realms. The monster had won already. She was bound, damnd to the fate of Calliope if she was fortunate. He was already abusing his power to damage her in a way nothing had ever done before.

Thanos explored her apartment, discontent with the mess. To casually display his power further, realizing how much her hat collection meant to her, his eyes glowed and in a sudden and brutal blast of beams her collection vanished in ashes. Pure pettiness, and the sign of that pettiness left Death with that same genuine fear she'd felt otherwise.

**Earth:**

The first signs of Thanos's success were a subtle but significant shift in the process of birth and conception across all life. The phenonema were clearly connected to a set of anomalies in the aspect of death likewise. The anomalies could not be placed at first. What had been a seemingly normal, instaneous aspect of life was either too fast or too slow, or the spread of a strange set of deformities across species.

The sorcerers of the Earth, however, paused. Something had changed, something monstrous and fundamental, targeting of all things one of the Endless and the very worst possible Endless to target. A virulent power flowed through the cores of existence, magic, science, other forces equally dreadful and powerful. And in it all the image of a towering figure of a bulk very akin to the monster Doomsday but a deep violet, with a furrowed ruffle-chip-like chin and a terrifying smile.

Dr. Fate summoned the Sentinels of Magic, an immediate response, and to his surprise they were joined by beings like the Allfather, Zeus Olympios, and Izaya Highfather.

"It is that serious?"

"Yes."

**Earth 616:**

Reed Richards was extremely concerned by the disappearance of Thanos, in a sense. Not so much by his disappearance as his decision to leave the Space Stone behind. Whatever world he went to, he was intent on not returning here. Where others celebrated, Richards knew all too well that this was just the harbinger of other, more dreadful phenomena.

**Titans Tower, San Francisco:**

Raven fell to her knees and screamed painfully. She gained a full foot in height and her bones grew in a painful process, and her violet eyes returned to blue, her clothes torn and ruptured by the change. Her eyes widened. Brother Blood had been far more clever than he figured, that youthful vampiric wretch. He had tried to summon a more controllable and malleable younger Raven without the age and understanding and control of her abilities.

For the first time since.......since the madness came upon her that led to her first form being destroyed the daughter of Trigon was herself again. Her eyes narrowed. What exactly had changed to cause this?

___________

In another room, Joseph Wilson awoke as from a strange dream to find his body changed.

He swore loudly, only to put his hand to his throat and gasp in shock. His new body could talk. How long had it been since-tears fell as he remembered the actions and what his father had done. No telling what effects this had had on an already unstable mind.

**_The ruins of the planet Krypton:_ **

Rao asserted his will and the decayed corpse of the planet drew back together.

And Rao said "Let there be life anew" and there was life anew, and Rao called it good. And the dead who'd thought themselves forever in the fates they chose in the Sunless lands gazed out in wonder, in shock, in horror, and dread.

**_The ruins of the Empire of Trigon:_ **

The once-dispersed energies that had coalesced as this one before did again. Raising himself to the now-towering height that devouring these ruins had given them, the demon laughed in power and triumph. The fool, the sheer arrogant fool.

He'd sought to bind death and life and he did not understand what he had.

Trigon smiled cruelly. His energies had been on the planet that Thanos of Titan had strode upon, cast there by the defeat of Azarath and the horrific sacrifice Slade Wilson had so unwillingly made, the execution of his own son.

**_Death's Apartment:_ **

Thanos sat down on the couch, deciphering that whatever he wished, Death could bring it to be.

You are better than the one who spurned me. Much moreso. You have a personality, and you control not just Death but Life itself.

He kissed her deeply, savoring her passion for him and the feeling that an incarnation of Death was finally and truly his. Death's tears did not dissuade him, they drew him further, savoring the undertone of fear and servile slavish obedience.

Thanos petted her cheek coldly and monstrously.

**_My time is come at last._ **

Apokilips, Citadel of Darkseid:

"My master," the fawning tones of DeSaad spoke, "there is but one explanation for the phenomena at hand."

Darkseid nodded.

**Yes, some fool has used the true name of one of the Seven and bound that entire realm to their will, unknowingly.**

He smiled his own squalid and terrible smile.

**He has given us all life again, my servant. For now we watch and see what else has been flushed out, or given life anew. I expect we are not the only ones and only a fool wages a war against new enemies he has no context to expect.**

Darkseid then looked down and said:

**But if the demon Trigon shall be one of them, I shall cast that wretch down and seize that wretched child of his. I will need a being that can overthrow universes to fight whoever can master one of the three eldest of the Seven.**

"So to Titans Tower, milord?"

**Not yet. I shall need a sign that the demon Trigon and his daughter have been restored, first. It should not be long in coming.**

**_The Ruins of Azarath:_ **

Arella awoke along with Danny Chase, both restored to the bodies they'd had on that day.

Arella spoke before Danny could:

"We're leaving and going back to Titans Tower. This should not have happened the way it did, or as it did.  But we can't do anything until we know what exactly is going on first."


	3. Deathless by Dawn

**_Death's Bedchamber:_ **

Thanos smiled at the sight of Death bound in front of her now empty closet, boxes of her things stored up by her after a full night of labor he'd ordered her to do, clad in nothing but her panties. Everything Death had lovingly collected was stored away now on his whim. One of the most valuable things she possessed, a relic of her very first universe was now in Thano's own pocket, something he'd made her tremblingly give him.

Death was exhausted, his seed dripping down her legs, no sleep that night, her wings present and beating and trying to fly away, even with the binding. Thanos had been amused by this earlier but now his amusement was shrinking. He also ached for combat, and for a chance to prove himself. Binding Death gave him access to her memories, and he looked with keen interest at an incident in a cemetery where a necromancer had tried the very thing he'd achieved successfully, only to be thwarted. Thanos smiled as he said:

_**You liked this Timothy Hunter, eh?** _

Fear grew in Death's eyes, and new tears as she nodded.

_**Perhaps I'll have you kill him personally for me.** _

Thanos laughed as she struggled slightly.

_**Indeed are you strong, Death of the Seven, but I am stronger.** _

He proved it by unchaining her, shoving her to the bed.

_**Take that outfit, put it on for me**_.

She complied, trembling. It was a one-piece swimsuit that would have been too small for her former thinner flatter body. For her curvier now adult-seeming form, it was ridiculously and degradingly small. He strode around her, her wings invisible, admiring her form. His fingers caressed and pinched her ass as she stared at the ceiling, He then reached up to caress her right tit, Death breathing deeply and having no choice but to permit the imposition, as he pinched her nipple. Thanos could have bound her so he couldn't hurt her, but he didn't want that. He kept judging her for someone else and she had no choice but to endure.

Thanos whispered in her ear:

_**I am a conqueror in need of an army. Find me a place that will give me the start of my new career.** _

Death took a deep breath and then they vanished.

**_Warworld:_ **

Newly resurrected, the son of Mongul was present on Warworld, preparing to challenge the Red Lantern who'd taken over the place for mastery, restoring it to his father's throne.

A sense of coldness like wind over a graveyard followed and two figures manifested out of a rippling shimmering rip between worlds. One was superficially a bone-white female who seemed of whatever race beheld her at the time, clad in the species' equivalent of the ridiculous one-piece. Mongul turned to face the second, a figure of shorter height but immensely broader density.

The figure was a dark violet hue, with a curiously craggy chin, glowing yellow eyes, and a killer's grin.

"This world belongs to the house of Mongul."

The figure standing in armor curiously akin to Mongul's own, after a fashion, laughed

_**Is that so?** _

He turned to the figure beside him:

_**Death, show me your binding and take this arrogant imitator of my own power to our realm.** _

Death of the Endless strode in a stiff fashion, moving like something beyond her compelled her. Mongul laughed and spread his hands.

"A girl in an outfit like that take m-" her hand touched his and in a flash great wings appeared and Mongul said "You" in a sudden startled recognition. A beating of wings and a flash of light and Death knelt in front of corpse ash, her wings shrouding her overly exposed form from the views of others.

The Red Lantern turned to Thanos.

"You won't find me as easy a target as him. And I won't face the girl."

Thanos smiled and then fired a beam that cut the Lantern's ring arm off at the elbow before the entity could retaliate or prepare a counteraction.

Shrieking as he fell and held his arm, Thanos sighed and strode over to him, lifting him by the throat.

Death was then beside him, staring with a thousand-yard stare and tears as he raised up the Lantern and smashed him into the ground.

"Is that how my life ends?"

"I'm afraid so."

Death extended her hand and as he took it, he gasped.

"How did-"

"I can't tell and I can't undo it."

The tears fell more freely and the one-armed spirit wiped them and Death actually embraced him at a different level. A sound of wings followed from the beating of hers and then she reappeared instantaneously.

As she looked out, Warworld knelt before Thanos of Titan, now its master, who turned to her and then told her:

_**Get to the bedroom. I intend to remind you of your place.** _

She strode and he grasped her shoulder, as she turned around.

_**Fly to it, little bird. I can always find you so I'll know where to do it.**_ Death's wings flapped and she flew, teleporting within and kneeling, hands in her face, tears flowing. She understood Dream now in a way she'd never imagined, and she wished someone could take her, take her place. But under the power Thanos used against her, such thoughts were pun-she froze in a silent scream with a jolt of nervous pain that left her paralyzed until shortly before his arrival.

Thanos then sat on Mongul's throne and issued his first orders with a cruel smile on his face. His first target was the nearest planet to his location, the planet Almerac. He wanted to test his Warworld and make a mark that'd draw the teeth of whatever passed for heroes in this universe. Only a fool waged a war knowing nothing of what he faced, and the furtive time when the universes met was not sufficient to truly know the nature of his enemies.

Orders given, he prepared to follow Death, content to walk and display his power.

_**Sanctuary of Dr. Fate:** _

"I know you were dead, Highfather. How are you alive now?"

**Something has gone very wrong.**

"Clearly. How then do we fix this?"

**We need to know what it is first. And I know I'm not the only one to return and neither is New Genesis. I shall need to confer with my opposite number.**

Vanishing in a boom tube, the Helm of Nabu was shaken enough that it permitted Kent to take it off. Turning to Zeus Olympios he said: "I presume you need a drink as much as I do."

The Skyfather nodded and they took the drinks together, the Allfather quietly pouring himself several stiff shots of mead from his drinking horn.

_**Titans Tower:** _

It was ironic that Raven teleported to the Watchtower when she did for as she vanished, her team concerned but believing her still in the tower, a bright green portal opened.

Titans Tower had seen portals before a thousand times over.

It saw the Titans surge to meet it, both the old team from Raven's past and the newer team in one gigantic bloc.

It had seen the living dead many times over, the most recent the horrid incident with the zombies and the black rings.

It had seen those departed and dear to the Titans return.

What it had not seen was Arella and Danny Chase restored to their classical youth and appearance, something that shocked the old team.

Hampered by the conditioning and treatment her father gave her, but lacking his patience and wisdom, Rose Wilson leaped straight at Arella, who stared at her with a cocked head and a quizzical eyebrow. Deciding it wasn't worth the fight, she used an Azarathi spell to tame children to have Rose fall to a brief sleep as she stood and crossed her arms at the team.

"I'm going to guess you've seen a lot of dead people who aren't dead anymore?"

"Yes," said Starfire.

"Right. And I'm going to guess additionally that they haven't exactly been friendly and been sucker punches of a sort?"

Again Starfire and the others nodded.

"And the girl with the white hair is one of Slade's?"

Everyone nodded.

"I need a drink."

Wally said: "Right there with you, Arella."

Danny asked "Can I-"

Garfield Logan took a great and malicious pleasure in saying "Nope, you're still 17 and too young to drink."

"Damn."

"I know, because I'm getting one myself. This isn't like the time that the new Brother Blood did his thing or the incident with the zombies?"

"What exactly happened after we became the Phantasm?"

"Long story, will explain."

_**The Watchtower:** _

Zatanna was startled by the appearance of billowing smoke without any sound as much as she was by the familiar appearance of a woman in a pink sari with unnatural, almost glowing bright blue eyes.

"Raven? You.....look different."

_Something strange is going on._

Her eyes narrowed.

_I hope my suspicions are wrong about what, and about what my visions showed me. I need to speak to Xanadu, can you help me find her?_

Zatanna started.

"Madame Xanadu? Why?"

_Because if what I saw is correct, we have a monster from another dimension in control of a being she alone of living modern sorceresses has seen and spoken to face to face._

"Good reason. I'll help."

_**Thanos's Bedchamber, Warworld:** _

Death's body was a mess of bruises, tears running down her face. Her leg had an open bleeding wound and protruding iridescent bone from it, and her nude form was not a sight of desire at the point due to the severity of how totally Thanos exercised his power over her. For she'd been made to thank him and to climax twice, both times when he'd broken bones, and the feeling was made worse by the realization that had Thanos willed it he could have rendered her invulnerable to harm. He didn't. He wanted her hurt, bleeding.

Someone, perhaps whatever Death he'd  known in another universe had given him a tremendous amount of wrath her body was his canvas to redesign. His eyes flashed and a beam struck right into the wound, boiling her blood and leading her to shriek herself hoarse.

He untied her and let her drop, telling her:

_**Heal it, join me in the bed. When you do, draw every single part of you to me. I will not be satisfied to have a mere part of you while the rest works.** _

_**You are mine, all of you. You bestow your gift on no other whim but mine.** _

He kicked her in the small of her back, leading her face to collide with the floor, then picked her bleeding face up by the hair.

_**Got it?** _

She nodded and he left her to curl up with her wings shrouding her body, relaxing in the bed comfortably. Three hours of struggle and burning heat of healing and restoring her flesh and bones and blood later, Death shambled slowly and stiffly due to soreness into the bed. Thanos cruelly let her lay beside him, and she closed her eyes to comply with his direct order. A bright glow filled the room and then Death of the Endless lay next to him, fully healed, and her sigil in his hands as he smiled with a terrible smile.

_**DC Multiverse:** _

In that instant across the entire current form of the DC multiverse death ground to a halt for ideas, gods, mortals, and lifeforms from bacteria to the most powerful and advanced aliens. It was then that a seemingly homeless redhaired man with a ponytail looked at his sword and said:

**Well this is going to end badly.**

He looked to the sword.

**I never wanted to see you or use you again but this.....now I don't have a choice. My sister wouldn't leave again without something being very, very wrong.**

He picked up his sword and said:

**Destiny, brother, I need to talk to you.**

Dawn rose on a deathless day across the multiverse.


	4. Memento Mori

_**Thanos's chambers, Warworld:** _

After the brutality dealt to her the previous night, Death was far more quiet and outwardly submissive to the Titan, wearing nothing more than her familiar tank top, kneeling before him quietly as she let him put a collar and leash upon her. It was the nature of the binding that she had nothing to say or to do but to yield to the demands of her captor, of the repeated and brutal slaking of his lust within her.

He'd taken her sigil after the binding, effectively usurping her and severing her from her family. She could not stop him compelling her to do her job as he saw fit, which meant that her function had ceased across the entire set of existence she had a jurisdiction.

As he saw into her mind with the binding, so she saw into his.

"You waged a war to stop a universe without death. Now......"

He smiled.

_**In that one my mistress-who-was was slain and that's what started it. You are not dead, Death. You are alive and well in front of me and required to obey my whims. Death is not over, it is a gift I intend to bestow infrequently, to show that I am the true master of Death herself and all her ways.** _

She remained kneeling and said, "Thank you for the love you show me, master."

He smiled now in a more superficially friendly fashion and leaned forward to lift her chin.

_**I am, however, keeping the sigil. I've seen enough of your mind, little Endless, to know that if you get it you can contact your siblings and they you. That's not going to happen.** _

With a bored expression on his face, one that Death knew and that Thanos knew Death knew was a lie, he told her Now practice your dancing for me to entertain me and any guests I may have.

He used his power over her to form a pole and told her

_**I know you've seen these in those mortal incarnations you take across the multiverse. You will practice until you collapse, if necessary, but you will do it right before you are allowed to do anything else or to sleep.** _

Death groaned and found herself wearing her full outfit. Giving Thanos a look of loving adoration and lust, she began to dance, at first very awkwardly and frustratingly, finding the motions not at all easy and her actions graceless and fumbling. Thanos's laughter was cutting, and as Warworld continued its motions to Almerac, where it'd arrive in a day or two, Death danced for nearly twenty-eight hours before collapsing, finally able to do a proper stripping pole-dance, as Thanos threw her a piece of moldy bread and told her:

_**Your reward.** _

Kneeling in front of him in her birthday suit she ate it famished, desperate for more, knowing he was realizing more of what his binding could do and eager to start exploiting it.

_**The realm of Death, Earth-616:** _

Death was concerned. Thanos the Mad Titan, her stalker who never understood no nor how to connect to her had totally vanished from her sight. This, to her understanding, had never happened before. Clad in a robe that seemed monastic, her face alternating between one curiously identical to the daughter of Trigon or a grinning skull, she strode to her infinity well.

If Thanos was anywhere in the connected set of worlds of which 616 was but one among many, she'd find him and then go to see what he was doing and how he expected to please her with yet another failed bid that she would not be able to explain no matter how many times he sought.

She scanned each and every one of the worlds root and branch. The Thanosi were present, yes, but they were not her servant or her lover. She scanned and found all of his alternate counterparts, each of whom was busy with yet another sad verse of the same repetitive song. The one she was seeking for had completely vanished.

Where had he gone?

Mistress Death pondered the question for a long time before her robes moved as she realized the simple and obvious answer. He'd left that entire section of the multiverse. She knew then that there were only a few prospects of places he'd be likely to go, given the peculiar complexes of Thanos of Titan and his issues in how he dealt with them.

She pondered. What were the odds that Thanos of Titan, pursuer of Death, would disrupt her counterpart's ability to function?

_**The Meeting Hall of the Endless:** _

Destiny of the Endless was careful to maintain his knowing persona and to stifle the surprise of his brother appearing with his sword glowing, as the towering red-headed man looked at his sibling.

Why have you returned, brother? 

** Our sister's been taken, or compromised somehow. **

Destiny's blind face nodded.

Taken by an entity from another multiverse. He calls himself Thanos of Titan. 

** How, brother? Morpheus was trapped for 72 years out of weakness and hubris. Our sister couldn't be taken captive unless she willed it, could she? **

Destiny shook his head and Destruction paused. His eyes narrowed.

Our sibling Desire gave Thanos her true name thinking that they would humble her and make her ask them for help. 

Destruction's rage grew and he grabbed Desire's sigil.

**Desire, get your ass in here!**

Desire sauntered in, then paused, seeing Destruction. Delight on their face became a mixture of fear and shame as they saw the sword pointed at them.

Brother? 

For a moment the broken voice made Destruction pause but only a moment.

** What did you think you were playing at? You know who our sister is and what she can do! I can leave my sphere and it will function fine. If anything happened to her, everything that's death grinds to a halt. Mortals, hell, even Immortals, they rely on death and its function for so much of what makes them who they are that its breakdown will imperil my realm, yours, your twin's, Delirium's, and even our older brothers'.  **

Desire paused.

What is Thanos doing? 

** Look you self-absorbed twit!  **

Destruction grabbed Desire by the neck and forced them to look at the breakdown across the multiverse, all that the Endless had jurisdiction over, and Desire's eyes went very wide.

Like when she left. 

**Yes, you fucking moron.**

Destruction's anger caused him to resume the ironclad suit of armor he'd once been famous for.

**I left this family believing my refusal to govern my sphere would lower destruction. You've just raised it astronomically even if nothing can die.**

He slammed the sword into a wall by Desire's head, the Endless looking at him in genuine fear.

We have to do something.

**What would you have me do? She is bound, brother. Anything that can control her will outmatch us, or worse make her take us.**

That brought Destruction up short.

**Then we shall have to find a careful set of actions indeed. **

Destiny chose that moment to speak;

Indeed my brothers, and it is that which leads me to my next action. My siblings, I hold your sigils. We must meet. Time is of the essence. 

_**Almerac:** _

"My lady Maxima," began one of her courtiers.

"I see it. Shoot it down."

As the planet wielded its interplanetary defenses at Warworld as it edged at the edge of its solar system, Warworld dissolved them by creating a vast symbol in the shape of an ankh that caused the devices to corrode and decay, as Thanos watched Death fall to her knees, exhausted by this kind of display and hurt deeply at what he was making her do, what he was making her become.

Warworld soon jumped right over the orbit of Almerac and as its army benefited from the wave of decay and crumbling unleashed in a seemingly deathless universe, the army landed and before it teleported two beings to face Maxima. One was the towering bulk of Thanos of Titan, the other a shellshocked woman in a black tanktop and shorts, hands bound next to her neck in a crude slave collar, looking at Thanos with love and yet underneath it Maxima read an undertone of hatred and fear.

She snarled.

"Let the girl go."

_**You dare tell me, Thanos of Titan what to do? Did you not wonder why your world sees death and decay when the universe is now deathless?** _

He threw the girl at her feet, she landed with a shriek of pain on a bruised shoulder.

He snarled:

_**That 'girl' is Death of the Endless. I have bound her as lover, concubine, and servant. Are you the equal of the Master of Death herself?** _

Maxima lunged at him roaring "For Almerac!'"

The Titan laughed and extended his gauntlets, turning them into fists and his hands began to glow with a searing golden light.....


	5. Ars Moriendi

**_Madam Xanadu's Sanctum:_ **

When the cloud of smoke cleared and Raven and Zatanna arrived, Madam Xanadu was already awaiting them.

She spoke without hesitation in a firm fashion.

"You already know, then, of the strangeness that has ensued?"

Raven's dry look in her restored form was its own answer and Xanadu nodded.

"Point taken. Now, though, it is beyond the resurrection of a few. Insofar as I can see, all death has stopped....and so has all birth, all reincarnation. Everything. A vast net. There is only one distant time something like this happened. Then she who defines and coheres all reality made the choice to abandon her position and her sigil. And like this everything ceased to die and reality, for a time, became unhinged.

I met her, long ago. She seemed a teenage girl then though she is ancient, very ancient. Moreso than the rest of the Endless. They believe she can survive the universe, I believe she has survived, perhaps more than once. She is ancient, unimaginably so, and by far the most powerful of the Seven. She has outlived them all and in no small part taken and ended so many universes things blend into each other."

The two women listened with a sense of awe and trepidation as Xanadu then said:

"Something, or someone took her captive. At the very least it is akin to when Roderick Burgess took Dream of the Endless captive, but Death is immensely stronger. To take her, to break her would require a power and a will akin to that of Superman's but greater. More dangerous. Deadlier. Such a person has done this."

Raven asked:

_So what then does this mean?_

"Simple. Life and death hang in the balance of someone mad as is possible to be, but arrogant and powerful enough to carry off the greatest theft in the history of existence. Death of the Endless is more than death, she bestows life, she coheres so many things that her capture and the breaking of her role, however short-lived, will begin to spiral in unpredictable fashions."

As they looked she said:

"I need to speak to Nabu. We need to re-summon the Sentinels of Magic."

_**Almerac:** _

Death of the Endless was already breaking, though not totally broken.

This was not the first time someone had tried to wield her true name against her, though the incident in the cemetery had been the closest this came to success. This, however, was the first time someone did so and bound her. She hated her reactions, hated thanking Thanos for controlling her and doing so to the proportion that she was so easily hurt, so easily damaged as he'd made her and remade her.

She was a person more than most of her siblings, who oscillated between their functions and their twisted and sad games. She was a person because she'd outlived universes, taken all of her siblings and seen them repeat the same stories and follies each as though they were new. And each time the burden of being Death, of reaping all that is and being despised and hated for it wore her down.

Now that was.....over, for a time. She had the closest thing to a vacation since Luthor's little stunt, and this was it. Beaten, wearing her 'standard' outfit with a slave collar, bones healing from another break Thanos forced on her to humble her. Forced to watch Maxima take on the towering presence of Thanos, who was shorter than some of his foes he'd face here but massively built to a point he was moreso than most such beings like him.

The Titan's laughter, that of the being she was forced to feel an overpowering lust that had her frustrated her hands were bound because she could not relieve it, forced to rub her thighs and pray that her rapist would win. And knowing because of her binding that she would be forced to ensure he lived and was restored even at the expense of her own health.

Maxima lunged at him and he slammed his glowing hands together, creating a boom that deafened Death and blinded her for a short time, as punches sounded and resounded, Maxima groaning in pain, followed by the crunching and squelching of a flesh-bound body breaking. Her ability to perform her function was suspended even as she ached to both be pleased by the monster that raped and beat her senseless, stuck.

She couldn't resist, her body, the form she took betrayed her. She was stuck in a humanoid shape, required to please Thanos, rewritten each and every time the Mad Titan had a whim to be his punching bag, to-to fit the degrading names he made her say.

Her vision returned and Maxima's broken body remained alive as Thanos eyebeamed holes clean through stunned, living Almeracians. He held her sigil and unlocked her hands, telling her:

_**Perform your function.** _

Again under his control she reaped every single soul on the planet, leaving the bodies of the entire species and all lifeforms, gods, and ideas from it behind to rot and decay, the ideas and gods becoming tangible. Death was overwhelmed at the brief surge of power, passing out in front of Thanos, who shrugged and decided to give her a little present to wake her up.

Slipping inside her wet cunt, he decided to reward her for her compliance by rewriting her to be invulnerable as she truly was, giving her just enough of her power to a point where he wouldn't hurt her the way she'd become inured to. Indeed, Death felt normal and cooed in pleasure at first in the twilight between the forced dreamless sleep and her awakening, and as she awoke she found herself still wearing the collar and leash and nothing else.

Thanos was rutting inside her, grunting in pleasure, and his hands were less brutal when her body felt as normal as it was going to. Indeed it felt amazing, and the compelled power that overrode her true nature and identity was given its fullest flower as her legs wrapped around his thighs and she groaned and bucked, the heat flowing through her something her unprepared body couldn't resist.

A brief flicker showed her the image of both Desire and Despair, then she shut her eyes and refused to look. Her siblings' brief sense of a mixture of emotion at finding her was dampened by her shutting them out in the shame of being seen by them being defiled by the Mad Titan, who saw them and gazed at them with a contemptuous sneer.

Death screamed through at least three orgasms that were all coerced, each longer than the one before it, leading to her vision blurry and her exhaustion so palpable she was prepared to return to that dreamless sleep when he climaxed inside of her, sliding out and wiping his dick with her top, throwing it at her and telling her to get dressed.

She couldn't bear to look at her siblings and simply transported herself and her master back to Warworld.

Thanos enjoyed having her publicly displayed on a cross, tied by ropes, not nails, as a perverse kind of mercy.

The ripple effect of his massacre of Almerac in a deathless universe were quite profound indeed, and the confirmation of his particular energy signature drew to him a confrontation he was not prepared for when he said:

_**The next planet I intend to visit is Earth, for my first of many assaults.** _

_**Take us there.** _

As the planet began to rev up its drives, streaks of red and green followed and Thanos raised his hand to halt the process. Fortunately for all involved it was in a stage that could be halted, and he smiled.

_**Perfect, a new battle. More of those fools with the magic rings.....** _

**_The Citadel of the Endlless:_ **

Desire and Despair were the last to properly appear at the conclave, both haunted in their own characteristic fashions by the sights they'd seen. And by the experiences of their sister.


	6. Power and Responsibility:

**_Warworld:_ **

Thanos remained seated on the throne of the planet with Death bound nude to a cross near him, enjoying that Death stared blankly into space, accepting her body's nude display in front of the inhabitants now without even a pretense of a murmur. Thanos saw the red and green streaks descending and decided that the first time had been too easy. He was aching for more combat, to prove to the captive elemental embodiment of cosmic power that it wasn't a mere word that held her captive but his brain and brawn alike.

As the Lanterns landed, the red one looked to the green one. Both were of the same species, humans. Thanos grinned at a much nastier level. He was all too familiar with meddling busybody human heroes in his own dimensions.

"By the power vested in me by the Green Lantern Corps under the leadership of the Guardians of Oa, you are under arrest for the massacre of Almerac."

Thanos grinned still more carnivorously.

_**If you want to arrest me, come and take me.** _

The Red Lantern couldn't resist the bait and hurled himself forward, the blood-like substance oozing from his jaws only for Thanos to duck underneath it and blast him with a beam from his fist that threw him back. The Green Lantern then sought to bind both his hands with constructs, Thanos smiling in turn as his black eyes glowed black and Death writhed in agony as he siphoned from her sufficient power to snap the bonds, letting her recuperate with her head drooping toward her chest and then moving to the Green Lantern.

His massive violet hand lifted the Lantern by the throat, and then as the Red Lantern rushed back he threw the Green Lantern at him, before proceeding to blur and to illustrate to them why strength on par with the most powerful non-Kryptonian superheroes combined with raw speed and force was no pleasure to take on on the battlefield.

The two were pummeled and never allowed sufficient time to fire blood or other constructs, as Thanos telepathically forced Death to not merely watch him but to feel the pain and suffering he was inflicting on others.

____________

It was one of the worst things he did to Death that Thanos made her not merely observer to his crimes, not merely voyeur, but participant. She loved everyone to a degree, even without the binding she would have loved Thanos too after a fashion. Not, however, as he would have wanted and therein would have been trouble. She loved all life and to see it suffering, to feel its suffering, to know that her function's suspension made that suffering worse and made herself at least partially complicit in same, all of this was a set of hammerblows to her nature far more powerful than most.

Thanos's sense of visceral enjoyment and the primordial display of brute force collided with her emotions and made her feel combat in a way she'd never had. The Endless were not like these figures in their brightly colored outfits wielding power great and terrible to wage war in the Heavens. Not outside Dream, to a narrow extent. She certainly wasn't. She had no need to be. Everything, even their parents Time and Night, would come to her in the end. Even the Necropolis staff that buried whatever facets of the Endless ended before the end of all things.

She was, or she had been, a guide, not a warrior. She was a divider of what came before from after, one who led souls to her realm, the Sunless Lands. All afterlives and none, because people made their own heavens or hells. Now.....now she was bound exposed before the hordes of a diabolical realm designed for conquest, watching Thanos spending what was in truth no more than twenty minutes dealing a lopsided set of beatings to the Lanterns far worse than what he'd dealt her, which was true even without the binding to blind her.

She fidgeted against the cross and then her voice rang out in pain when he wielded her sigil and enabled her to phase out of the bondage, taking the hands of both.

Each looked at her vulnerable and alone, and stared at her nude form with dried semen and blood still visible, the first scars she couldn't heal beginning to form.

"I'm sorry" each of them said after a fashion and she held them, weeping and mourning, Rachel weeping for her children. A sound of wings and a flash of light and they were gone.

Thanos smiled as she reappeared seemingly instaneously, and then ordered her to resume her normal variety of clothing for a moment. Death went instantaneously from nude to clad in boots, jeans, and a tank-top, all in black.

Thanos made her kneel in front of him, and as she extended her tongue, expecting the obvious from her master he flicked her face hard enough to draw blood.

_**I will give you your true degree of ability to be harmed if you are truthful to me with my questions, dear. No need to slake the needs of the flesh, not right now.** _

Death nodded, hating the sense of hope and affection that rose in her.

He began by asking:

_**Have you had lovers before me?** _

She nodded in shame and fear and defeat.

He smiled.

_**Good, you are honest. In this universe?** _

She shook her head no.

_**How many universes have you outlived?** _

"Thirteen thousand and one."

He leered.

_**Taken all your family each of those times?** _

"Yes."

It was a word that was toneless and reflected a deep hurt that fascinated Thanos.

**_My mistress loved her duties, she longed to take mortals and to ensure things were balanced. I can read your memories, some of them. You keep fighting your job and trying to leave it, forced back in, required to cycle between being hard, cold, and brittle and putting on a persona to deal with the hurt and the loss of meeting so many who hate you when you have done nothing at all._ **

Death closed her eyes and tears fell, she hated this but he, for all his cruelty and barbarism did speak the truth here.

_**Harder still when you love them, isn't it? You love them and you know them intimately and yet they fight you, threaten you. Many, I'd imagine, given the kind of power I have might prove even worse than I did. They might try to kill you. I am not trying to do that.** _

He leaned forward and wiped her tears away with a single finger, smirking as he then saw her staring at him and then asked:

_**Of those other lovers, in other universes, have any matched me as a lover?** _

He dangled her sigil so close, so tantalizingly close.

Death looked at it, and then answered honestly with a snarl of hatred on her face showing what she looked like in wrath:

"No and I **hate you** for this."

Thanos smiled again.

_**Honesty, so valuable in you. No guile, not like her. You are a surprisingly innocent soul for one who predates this universe and so many others. You may be the single oldest being I've encountered in any given multiverse.** _

He then asked:

_**What do you do for life? I've seen what you can do for death.** _

She blinked.

"I give each soul the spark of life, and the souls that reincarnate, I select their future forms and prepare beforehand that they do so. Even with my family. I know when my brothers and sisters will die, the forms they take, and set in motion all they need to be reborn."

**_Do any ever remember or acknowledge this?_ **

Death shook her head, sighing in sorrow.

"No they don't. Not even my siblings."

Thanos nodded.

**_So nothing lives without you, nothing dies without you. In this sense you are perhaps the most crucial of your family to the maintenance of complex or even simple life, organic or not?_ **

She nodded.

_**Your function, in its fullest, is the embodiment of Life and Death, and you meet all that is needed to sustain both?** _

She nodded once again. He smiled.

_**I take it then that you are the only Endless capable of birthing life in the form of mortals?** _

Her eyes went very wide in fear and hating the betrayals forced upon her by her body's actions she nodded.

Thanos simply said:

_**Interesting.** _

He left things there and stepped away, telling Death:

_**Go to my bedroom, await me there.** _

Thanos went to the guidance point for Warworld, which was alert with sensations of panic.

_**Explain your fear, now.** _

"Lord Thanos, we've found a fleet in our viewport."

_**Yes, I can see that. Why are you alarmed?** _

"It's from Krypton, master."

_**If I knew what a Krypton was I might understand.** _

"That world and that race are dead and have been for decades."

Thanos's eyes narrowed.

_**A strange consequence no doubt of securing Death as my weapon. She is life as well as death, some would die who might have died later, others who were dead would receive anew the breath of life. A fleet from a dead world is not a genuine reason to fear.** _

"Sir, they're parked near a yellow star."

Thanos again raised an eyebrow until he was shown footage from the planet called Earth, of a man in a red, blue, and yellow outfit who moved faster than a speeding bullet, leaped tall buildings in a single bound, flying faster than light. Able to move planets with his hands and ignite stars by beams of his own from his eyes.

Thanos stood for a moment.

_**I see. They would not know nor understand the kind of power at their disposal. They do not know anything of me.** _

He smiled.

_**Death? Join me at my side when I hail the Kryptonians, I will want you there to see what your function's demise has wrought.** _

Death materialized with nothing but a thin sheer nightgown on that hid nothing of her changed frame, staring with that vacant thousand yard stare in discontent. He told her:

_**Proper clothing, girl. Have some self-respect.** _

She glared and then re-assumed her traditional clothes, staring with the broken-eyed gaze of someone slowly unraveling and corroding and corrupting no matter what she sought to do.

Thanos began to hail the ship with genuine delight.


	7. I hold the Keys of Hades

**_Kryptonian flagship Kandor:_ **

Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van, the unofficial leaders of the resurrected Krypton were awed at the kinds of changes unleashed in the wake of the Event, as Krypton's new Council had unimaginatively labeled the rebirth and resurrection of the entire planet and science and works of Krypton as they'd been in its last days. The fire falls, the Jewel mountains, so much of the splendor of the lost world reborn. There was a strange image that seemed to mar it, a shrieking Kryptonian clad in black bodysuits of the old days with an ankh in the pentagon where Kryptonians held their symbols but none understood at the time nor questioned.

When the massive and ominous shadow of Warworld appeared, it did so to a flagship containing the best and most loyal of Krypton's soldiers who hadn't fallen in with Dru-Zod's grand coup that had seen him fail and then be exiled. Hardened combat-ready soldiers now empowered with the abilities Kal-El had no doubt used to conquer Earth.

This much they expected to lead to some kind of reaction, and Mongul himself was stronger than any single Kryptonian but no match for many. When they expected his hail, however, they heard a much deeper voice, a sub-basso that had almost infrasound qualities. The image was not that of an orange brow-ridged colossus but a Titan with purple hue and a set of valleys cleaving his oversized jaw. They saw something that did make them start. The Kryptonian woman, now wearing clothing like that of the Kryptonian-seeming human race, a tank top, black jeans, and an ankh.

Her eyes and appearance were more powerfully prone to snaring each with their ideals of beauty than her sibling the two-shadowed Desire, or they had been once. Now.....now her gaze was a broken thing that made them all feel pity and sorrow. Scars marred the once-pristine face, a pattern akin to knuckles on one cheek, a scar through an eye that was not blind yet but risked becoming that way.

One of Krypton's Aether-Seers, the shadowy sorcerer-lords who'd worshiped dark and forbidden entities with horrific rites and were resurrected as all else started.

Speaking with the accent of Xan City, he said:

_That's no girl, and that wasn't a Kryptonian we saw. That is Her, the eldest sister of the Seven Endless. Whatever beast rules Warworld, he's enslaved the embodiment of life and death across the universe._

Jor-El paused.

_We go, now._

The decisive accent of Kryptonopolis followed and the fleet of Kryptonians warped away as Thanos snorted in derision.

_**Cowards.** _

He then turned to Death, making her kneel before him, caressing the scar on her left cheek.

He looked to her right eye, the one that was slowly but irrevocably scarring.

He smiled as he said:

_**An embodiment of cosmic power with one eye? There's a certain mythic resonance here. But......** _

His finger hovered over the closed eyelid, Death whimpering in fear that she hated herself for the weakness in showing, as her master withdrew his hand.

_**Not yet. Not now.** _

He smiled.

_**I find it fascinating to consider by the nature of this that even if some circumstance manages to overthrow me......** _

His left hand continued to caress the scar, savoring the tears that flowed from her eyes.

_**You will never be able to forget me and neither will that family of yours.** _

He then enjoyed throwing Death on her front on the bed when she teleported them without a direct order, and slid inside her virginal ass without any preparation as Death howled in agony.

Thanos thrust into her, relishing that even the invulnerable Death still felt pain when he took her, that his hands grasping her as she let him bind her wrists to a bedpost above her was a sign of domination, of ownership. Of utter and complete and unrelenting control. Thanos's thrusts were painful, the depth of his thrusts also painful, Death's screaming and quiet soundless sobs part of what he very much enjoyed about this version.

In her desperation her wings flared out again and Thanos enjoyed pulling them back as Death groaned in pain with a lower sound that became a set of high-pitched whines and a sigh of relief as he let them go. He finished inside her with a low and dangerous grunt, leavng Death tied for a couple of hours before telepathically telling her to free stself, which she complied with. Re-clothing herself and stepping very gingerly, Death found herself by her master's side as he ordered her to watch a nebula with him, frozen in suspension due to her function suspended.

Thanos smiled as she remained frozen, fear now binding her to him more than the ritual did. So much else to do but soon, soon he would have already won. Death's winces of pain when she moved showed as much.


	8. I looked and I beheld a white horse and its rider:

**_Meeting Hall of the Endless:_ **

Existing outside time and space, the Meeting-Hall of the Endless was subect to no great degree of control or lapse with time. A meeting that would take around fifteen minutes of time on Earth to the perception of the Endless would overlap by months, or potentially years of time among mortals. It was in this way that the meeting of the Endless to discuss the imprisonment and suffering of the eldest sister in the family began.

Prior meetings were prone to be if anything awkward, stilted, undramatic. Even the appearance of Daniel-as-Dream had been. The closest was when Morpheus was imprisoned instead of Death when her grief and shame at his fate had led to a relationship more nearly approximating that of a family than otherwise.

This situation, however, was in a class of its own. An Endless captured not by a dangerous foe alone but one aided by another. The corrosion of the realms of the younger Endless and the dissonance in the Dreaming and in Destiny's book was one factor. So too the return of the heavily armored Destruction, whose wrath had seen an eruption of a towering rant that had cowed the excitement of Delirium and the unexpected calmness of Despair at seeing him again.

He'd harangued them for hours on how the foolishness of Desire in their games with mortals and the Endless alike had driven one of their siblings to suicide and another now captive to a monster who'd easily enshrined himself into a disturbed set of relationships spanning planets, planes. The resurrection of the demon Trigon was a relatively minor example as next to the Endless any number of entities could return and it would have made no difference, save that their sister's capture left them far more vulnerable than they would have otherwise been.

The dead did not die, now. The division had broken down, and Destruction had even admitted:

**My error in believing all of us could abandon our posts and nothing  would happen to them. I did, and destruction continues. She had her post taken and her function stopped as though never had it been. Now....** he sighed. **Now we stand at an abyss and that abyss as I have reiterated too much came from one of our siblings and our family's wretched habits with grief.**

As one the entire family turned vision to Desire, who pulled their collar with unease.

_** Aheheh. Well....... ** _

The silence was total.

Dream, his outfit black instead of white, reflecting the coursing anger and that the remnants of Morpheus felt it as strongly as the current iteration, spoke in turn:

_**Bickering, as entertaining as it can be in some cases, will not save our sister nor alter our circumstances. There must be a way to save her, though I am not sure what precisely it is.** _

Desire, even in the midst of circumstances could not resist baiting their brother:

**_Even the Prince of stories can't see this narrative?_ **

Delirium spoke next:

**I lOs** _T oN_ **e oF My s IsTeRs aNd ONe of mY BroT** **Hers I dO noT WanT** **tO lO** **Se MoRe.**

That brought them up short again. Instinctively the family's gaze tilted to Destiny.

My family, the only advice that I can give here is that my book says she will be freed. Her captor always has the seeds of his own destruction and a lack of will to fully win, in the end. To face him, however, is unwise. He has already threatened to make our sister kill us, and he means that threat. Do not disregard my statements. 

His gaze turned specifically to Dream and Desire, and then to Destruction. The latter huffed and crossed his arms around his chest, glaring. The first rolled his eyes and said:

_ **I've been imprisoned enough I have no desire to dance to someone else's tune.** _

Desire snorted.

** I am a fool in many ways, brother. This would not be one of them.  **

Warworld:

Thanos towered over Death, who was allowed for a second day to retain her invulnerability. No restraints, either, though her gaze toward him was that of the bird toward the serpent. The scar on her left cheek set in firmly at this point, the cracks visible, and the scar on her right, the one that threatened to destroy one of her eyes and her equivalent of sight, was slowly growing to that end. Her body was exposed fully to him and she made no effort to shield herself, exposing herself to his gaze without even a pretense of modesty, knowing all such pretenses were futile regardless.

Her gaze was the broken one that satisfied him, and the first two fingers of his right hand traced the first stages in other marring, the results of his successfully weaponizing her, with delight. Streaks of darkness, one spiderwebbed right beneath her right tit, another set of lines along her left side upward from her left striation to the upper side of her rib cage.

Beneath her eyes, those same streaks akin to a set of black tears, on both sides. Thanos smiled and then leaned down, Death's legs spreading with an audible gulp of fear and a humiliated groan as he slipped into her. Thanos's grin burned into her eyes and she knew better than to close them. Her body and the mutual heat between them was something that she loathed and he delighted in. He had the raw force to make his power apparent and she, for all that she represented certain elements of the very universe itself, for all that she was them given form and will and a Being to represent them.....she was but a woman, brought down beneath a monster, required to thank the monster for his monstrosity.

Thanos rutted into her with a savage grin, smiling as her ironclad will broke a bit further when he got, finally, whimpers of defeat tinged to a narrow degree that cut into Death's very being by arousal. The shock of the realization and his hand upon her face and the desire to just escape it all led to Death staring and then the scar along the right side of her face punctured her being to a point that her right eye turned milky, and Death realized belatedly she only saw him out of her left side.

At that point, for a time to come, Death broke and surrendered to Thanos's will, the resistance she'd mounted already costing her an eye and marring flesh hitherto impossible to truly mar. Thanos noticed the change, and decided at that point to whisper into her ear on her now blind side a few words that changed her life forever, and at a fundamental nature elements of the very universe itself, in fashions impossible to predict. Death was also Life, after all, and Thanos intended to enjoy every possible second of that reality.....


	9. He rode forth conquering and to conquer

_**The Fortress of Solitude:** _

Superman had ensured Clark Kent took a 'vacation' for a week to a godforsaken part of the world outside major cell phone or other kind of contacts as he decided to investigate on his own as well as with the rest of the League the strange anomalies that followed. Hal, Guy, and Jon, and the other Lanterns reported a strange being akin to Mongul had stormed Almerac and slaughtered every last inhabitant, with a slave who resembled very much a figure of whom even mages spoke in whispers.

Death of the Endless, the second-eldest and in many ways the most dangerously powerful of the Seven who bound Existence. For the most powerful being in the universe, she was in dire straits. Thanos had made her display herself and clearly signaled her status as a slave. The prospect of a Mongul able to unleash blasts of awesomely destructive power from his eyes and fists commanding one of the most powerful fundamental forces in existence was a problem in itself.

What Superman did not expect or logically consider in the midst of the immediate was one of the other consequences of securing power over Life and Death and leaving them in a revolving door of chaotic incoherence.

A voice spoke to him in the soft and strong terms he'd heard so often in memory in his crystals.

_**My son,**_ in pure Kryptonese, the high and refined dialect of the capital. **_My son, your mother and I never dreamed we might be able to see you as you are before us, alive and well and so very strong_**.

"Father?"

_**Armagetto:** _

Darkseid stared with some consternation at the set of warriors that manifested via boom tube in his capital.

_**Izaya.** _

**Uxas.**

Why are you here?

_**Whatever force has restored us to living in this world as we know it is easily beyond us, I do neither of us any insult to admit as such.** _

Darkseid nodded.

_**That much is true.** _

Izaya looked him in the eye and said:

**We must postpone our own confrontation to deal with this force. Divided whatever commands that power can match us more easily than he can united.**

Darkseid laughed, coldly.

_**Millennia of endlessly bitter war cast aside for a short-term alliance just like this?** _

Izaya shook his head.

**No, surprise as our greatest ally, surprise and the knowledge that when whatever's disturbed so much else is cast aside, assuming our return remains we can resume the usual state of affairs.**

Darkseid nodded.

**_Those terms are acceptable. So then shall it be._ **

He rubbed his chin with his finger.

_**Now........there is the practical matters of command of whatever force we bring and other factors related to that. Those won't be settled today. Expect my arrival tomorrow on your world, Izaya, and an embassy of the truce suiting one. The moment this is over.....** _

Izaya nodded.

**We are too different and have been enemies for too long for any true peace to hold. You and I alike know that much.**

Darkseid smiled, the only real hint of genuine peace with him and a nod of admission of the truth.

_**Warworld Orbits:** _

When Warworld came closer to the Earth, Thanos of Titan was surprised to see a few things that he did not expect. Among them was a set of forces clad in burning yellow led by an alien of a shade of purple somewhat more reddish than Thanos's own.

**In blackest day, in brightest night, beware your fears made into light. May those who worship evil's might, burn like my power, Sinestro's might!**

The Sinestro Corps had deployed in no small amount of strength before the Mad Titan's new base. Already content to build his new weapons from designs that were already present, the Titan eschewed Sinestro's attempts to contact him and waste his time and ordered firepower to be launched at them.

Death, clad in an outfit deliberately akin to that of the Mistress he'd once loved and served, stood beside him with a broken gaze. His hand was on her sigil, which burned with a blue fire and due to this the deathless void was deathless no longer. Powerful weapons designed to give a herald of Galactus at least something to make him notice them burned holes through the Sinestro Corps members, leaving corpses to freeze up in the void.

Thal Sinestro himself snarled and ordered his men to retreat. As much as it pained him, he would have to face Atrocitus and those wretched Guardians. And do so recognizing that it was indeed Warworld alone in the current deathless phase that could bring death.

Thanos enjoyed that Death was required to stand by his side nude, his massive hand cupping her ass, before ordering her to kneel before him as he rested his feet on her back, giving a set of orders. This was the second time these people with magic rings had challenged him. It would not be the last and he intended to meet the next one with a total war and to do so in a new fashion.

After his first set of orders were given, he pulled Death up by her hair, leading to a spray of iridiscent blood when he tore out part of her hair from the right side of her head.

_**Time for you to learn to fight, because if you don't, you'll threaten my anger. And you won't like me when I'm angry.** _

Death knelt, sighing.

"Yes master, your will be done."


	10. The Dead Walk

_**The Fortress of Solitude:** _

Both Karas were there, now, as well as Kal. The shorter one with the longer hair, the taller one with the cleavage window and the shorter hair. Each stared in shock at the appearance of two Kryptonians who were talking to a clearly stunned Superman.

My son, to see you grown to manhood.......to be able to wield the power of a god....it is all we ever dreamed and more.

Jor-El had already taken the time to fly around and explore the Fortress. Lara likewise flew, and both shed a tear at the sight of the statue of both of them.

You say you are not the master of this world?

Clark shook his head.

"I am Clark Kent, dad, as well as Kal-El. Or Superman. Moreso, in fact. I was found by an amazing couple in Kansas who raised me to see what I could do as a way to work wonders. And in time, humanity might join me with them."

Jor-El nodded.

They took you in too, my niece?

She nodded.

Superman's parents nodded.

We would like to meet them.

Superman in turn nodded and the three flew off.

Kent Farm, Smallville, Kansas:

The Kents were used to their son, or their son and the Karas arriving and so they dismissed the sight and prospect of the arrival of three flying aliens as anything unusual, even with the streak of green in with Clark's blue. It was when Clark landed with two aliens that they'd never seen before that they were surprised until a chill crawled down their spines.

The two aliens resembled him in face and body. In build he was his father's son, and they had the same jawline, though his eyes were clearly those of his mother and his manner the kindness of Lara Lor-Van.

Surprising Clark with his mastery of English, Jor-El said:

"You are Mr. and Mrs. Kent?"

They nodded.

"You raised my boy to the man he's become?"

They nodded again, somewhat hesitant and then Jor-El flew to them and hugged them both.

"My original vision was......narrow. The product of a doomed, dead world. You gave him life, made him something greater."

He smiled.

"He is your son more than he is mine and I am grateful for that. You gave him the best possible home he could have had, and made him a bridge between worlds that is more than I could have ever imagined."

He smiled and then looked at them.

"Kal-El being Superman is precisely because he is Clark Kent, and I can see that. Can Lara and I come in?"

They nodded.

To Superman's great relief, the meeting of both sets of parents went well, and was the start to a second meeting of worlds.

**_Warworld:_ **

**_Again._ **

Death raised herself up, wearing the armor, wiping iridescent blood off her mouth, gasping in pain, hoping that the blood wouldn't choke her and she'd aspirate on it and die, if such a being as her could (she secretly knew she couldn't and this was another cursed difference with her family).

Staring at Thanos, she put all her rage, all her humiliation, all her anger at the binding into a single overpowering punch that knocked Thanos on his face, a pool of his blood in front of him. It was his oath that made her kneel and raise him up, and his bloodied face smiled a coarse and cruel grin of horrors.

**_Good. You're learning fast._ **

Only the binding stopped her from grabbing him and hurling him into the nearest star, and it was that which led her to affectionately caress his head, as he smiled and knew her soft sigh of seeming compassion for what it was.


	11. Power and Irresponsibility:

**_Realm of Death, Dimension 616:_ **

Death frowned, her blue robes flitting slightly in an unnatural breeze around her throne. Usually she could see or contact her equivalent in the other multiverse,for they alone among life were the same in all those universes, though the two hardly got along. The Endless were not like the abstractions and personifications of her universe. They were more powerful and more remote, beings that embodied things in ways that left those as her, Eternity, and Oblivion uneasy. It did not sit easily with them either that what were two separate beings in their multiverse were one entity in the other, that Death of the Endless was also Life of the Endless, where Death and Life in their worlds were separate entities.

She could not see her counterpart, and Thanos, her true love she'd come to realize was indeed missing from her dimension. Death knew that Thanos's affections for and of her were lost, for now perhaps. When it dawned on her that Thanos of Titan might have been willing to seek that of her counterpart, Death remained in thought for a moment. That wouldn't do. She would need to be sure to find a way through that Thanos could not interdict. And there was one person in existence best suited for this.

Death's pale face with dark hair looked into her mirror, mocking her with the resemblance to her counterpart. Yes, she would need to see Reed Richards. Immediately. Thanos hadn't just potentially done this, he had actually-

She vanished in a flash.

_**Baxter Building:** _

Johnny Storm blinked in surprise seeing the very tall and pale woman whose garb reminded him of a comics character, Crow or something like that, and whose appearance was pale, almost bone-white with black lips and strong eyeliner.

"Oh shit, it's you. This a Thanos thing?"

Death nodded, silently.

Johnny mouthed _Fuck_ and then said "Flame on!" and zoomed to find Reed.

_**Warworld:** _

Death gazed into the mirror with tears in her eyes, lower lip trembling. She could only see out of one eye, and the streaks that marked mars and ripples in her were growing. She was clad in nothing but a loin cloth, covered in her own iridescent blood, bruises and scars streaking her flesh. One was growing along her shoulder and streaking down, the contradictions in her nature and who she truly was and what she was being made to do. The most free-spirited entity of them all, a thrall to a monster from another universe.

The sense of exhaustion permitted her briefly to sink into a rarety for her.

Death awoke, clad as she was, in the Dreaming.

Dream stood there, tall and white, one of his eyes sparking with the light of concentrated dream-stuff. She put her right hand around her tits, concealing them, and her left hand to shield her hairless pussy, something Thanos had insisted on. Another of the things that harmed her.

_**Sister.** _

The word led to her tears falling again as she saw him with her one-eyed gaze.

_**You have but a brief time in my realm. If we seek to help you, we risk more of us caught in the trap this monster's set. That will not help you.** _

She cast her head down, only to feel her brother's hand on her chin as he lifted her face up, and their eyes met. One dark and containing infinite abysses, one white and marred by the deep rift in her face that went past her jawline, down her neck. One white and burning with a timeless light, one sparking with the bright light of the infinite vistas of dreams.

_**But you are not alone and you will never be. When the time is right, you will call, and I will answer, and he shall be cast into the abyss where he belongs, and you shall be free.** _

Death blinked and as she continued to cry, he hugged her heedless of her garb or lack thereof.

He then continued:

_**You are not alone, sister. And I will be seeing you.** _

Death awoke to find Thanos's massive hulk looming over her as his eyes bore into her own.

_**This Timothy Hunter.....** _

His finger stroked the cheek with the blind eye.

_**He managed to get into Warworld, seeking to rescue you. He's potentially able to outmatch your True Name, even when I have bound you. How.....strange.** _

Thanos smiled and it was a cold and monstrous smile.

_** You do care for him, far moreso than you do for me. Come, let us see what shall occur with this trial of strength when a boy fancies himself a man and seeks to do a man's job.  ** _

He dragged her by her arm, Death making no resistance, terrified for the first time in all this in a way she had not been since her brother went to Hell.

The memory of the words:

_**You are not alone** _

echoed and she closed her eyes, relying on that to give her some internal strength.The rifting damage done to her on her shoulder spread further and deeper, crossing between her breasts, just further south of it. The agony led her to keep her mouth open in a rictus scream, heedless that her full nudity was casually seen by so many countless aliens that understood all too well what the thing Thanos of Titan was dragging was and that she was no woman.

Awe, envy, and fear marked the tread.

Thanos rounded the corner to a chamber where Timothy Hunter had just demolished an entire wave of his elites with carefully targeted spells, and then Hunter's eyes went very wide indeed with fear.

"D-Death?"

Her broken gaze didn't meet his own. Well that wasn't good.....

_**Sentinels of Magic Headquarters:** _

"Hunter went off on his own, didn't he?"

The dour man in the trenchcoat frowned as his cigarette in the shadows framed his face with a slightly hellish appearance.

"Yes," Zatanna and Xanadu sighed.

John Constantine blinked, sighed heavily, and pinched his nose with the fingers of his left hand, worry lines forming a spider-web across his face.

"God fucking dammit."

Raven's eyebrow raised.

_Who?_

"A lot's changed since you've been....dead."

_Clearly. How bad is this?_

"It's.....it's bad. But there's nothing that can be done about it now. Now.....now we plan."


End file.
